Before I encountered Sekhmet, nigh six years ago, I was an avid lover of Celtic mythology (even if I wasn’t a very good student of it). The two gods Who stood out to me then were Lugh and Brigid, and I want to talk about Them both as part of the Pagan Blog Project… both to remember my time with Them and to do some more thorough research that I hadn’t done when I was younger.

In fact, I think I’m going to cover the research portion with the same Cliffs Notes format as I’ve used for Nit and Nebt-het so far.

– daughter of the Dagda + one of the Tuatha De Danann, a poet
– wife of Bres of the Formorians
– mother of Ruadan
– had two sisters of the same name: one was a goddess of healing, one a goddess of poetry, one a goddess of smithing
– half-sister to Cermait, Aengus, Midir, Bobd Derg
– owns two oxen, Fe and Men
– owns the “king of boars,” Torc Triath
– owns the “king of sheep,” Cirb
– equated to Minerva and Athena
– related to St. Brigid

– Invented keening when mourning for Her son, who was killed in battle.
– Invented a whistle used for night travel.
– Her day is February 2, both St. Brigid’s Day and Imbolc/Imbolg.
– “At Luxeuil in the Saône valley of eastern France, … Bricta is specifically identified as the consort of Luxovius, a god of healing and light which may be cognate with Lug.”

Lady Augusta Gregory (Gods and Fighting Men, 1904):

[She is] a woman of poetry, and poets worshipped her, for her sway was very great and very noble. And she was a woman of healing along with that, and a woman of smith’s work, and it was she first made the whistle for calling one to another through the night. And the one side of her face was ugly, but the other side was very comely. And the meaning of her name was Breo-saighit, a fiery arrow.

The Second Battle of Magh Turedh:

Bríg came and keened for her son. At first she shrieked, in the end she wept. Then for the first time weeping and shrieking were heard in Ireland. (Now she is the Bríg who invented a whistle for signalling at night.)

And now for some personal recollection.

When I worshipped Brigid, I did not comprehend or interact with gods as I do now. It’s a strikingly strong difference; today, I have very tangible, palpable experiences with my gods. Some 8-10 years ago, I didn’t – I just aimed my devotion, my love, and my prayers at Them and hoped They heard me. I would occasionally feel the presence of a god, but that was usually Cernunnos, not Brigid or Lugh.

Yet Brigid remained incredibly important to me, however little I studied Her, however little I directly experienced Her. I started calling February 2 the Day of Fire and looked to it as the first hope of spring, the first landmark that winter’s hold would begin to loosen over the snow-dowsed mountains. The time between my personal new year on Jan 15 and the Day of Fire on Feb 2 was a period of incubation and preparation for steering the new year, a time of imagining and planning how I would continue to build my own self.

Brigid, first and foremost to me, was the Lady of the Forge. Hearth-fire was well and good; it protected, it gave life through its warmth and light, but it was the heat and deep color of the forge that stood out the most to me. I was, and still am, ever-changing; the forge became a way to rebuild myself. When terrible things happened and stripped away parts of me, I knew I was only being melted down, the dross removed, in order to be reforged into a stronger, different person. I found comfort and security through radical changes and hard times by knowing that I was in Brigid’s forge, being improved time and time again.

I am still very fond of Brigid and Her Day of Fire, which is coming up rather quickly. Maybe I’ll reach out to Her once more.